RE: Symantec Corporate AntiVirus 8.0 - thoughts

["Anthony, Shayla" <shayla () exchange cis pitt edu>]

Most of the "managed" software packages (Norton and Trend Office Scan/Trend Server Scan) will allow you to "push" 
client installs to each of the computers on a network. 

For instance, with Trend's products - you buy a server version of the Trend Scan software and install it on your 
antivirus server. Install all your clients with the Trend Scan software. Trend Server scan will pick up all the client 
systems in its "management console" allowing you to view all the systems and thier current status (if they are 
infected, if they are scanning, what version of virus defs etc...) You can also choose to push a scan or "push" updates 
at any time via a scheduler program that you can set up or click on computers individually to update. It forces the 
updates immediately to the machine (assuming they are on) or immediately as they are turned on. The user cannot cancel 
scans or the updates. You could force a push and a scan all day long, every hour of the day, if you wanted to. It's 
like running Windows 2000/XP task scheduler for an AV program.

Norton Corporate allows you to do something very similar. Even though it is really more a "pull" than a "push", I've 
never had any problems with clients receiving updates properly. The management console that comes with Noron Corp also 
allows you to view the network of clients, thier status, and allows you to push updates and scans on them, just like 
the Office Trend packages I mentioned above.

There are other packages out there that do the same thing. If you are running software that isn't managed - I have no 
clue other than "trusting" the users to update themselves - I'd look into getting a management server console and 
trying your luck that way. 


Shayla